


Hanging From A Thread

by pensversusswords



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensversusswords/pseuds/pensversusswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his youth, Tony would have never imagined that one day it would be normal for him to have to pry his stubborn spider child off of the ceiling.</p><p>Yet, here he was, and he wouldn't change that for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanging From A Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, but has since been beta'd by the lovely [whoteahellisbucky](http://whoteahellisbucky.tumblr.com/) who fixed a million things. 
> 
> [My tumblr](http://preserumsteve.co.vu), where I take prompts and all the fun stuff happens.

"Peter, I swear to God you better get your sorry ass down here right now."

"You said a swear word," Peter crowed from above him, mouth pursed into a petulant pout. Upside down, it looked even more ridiculous than usual on his face, his childlike features making what was probably meant to be menacing look sullen instead. "’m gonna tell Papa and you’ll have to put money in the swear jar."

Tony grit his teeth together. His neck was aching from tilting his head back to stare at his six year old son who was currently hanging upside down above him and, probably thanks to having two unbelievably stubborn parents, was absolutely refusing come down.

"Considering that you’re hanging from  the ceiling right now, I don’t think you’re really in a position to deal out threats. Come down here, now."

"No," Peter shrilled.  

Tony sighed heavily. "I’m just asking you to go to bed. It’s not a big deal. You're tired anyways, you almost fell asleep just now. You're not fooling anyone."

"I'm _not_ tired."

"Peter."

"I don’t want to," Peter whined, and crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, see, I actually already knew that, you know? Considering when I told you to, you crawled up on the ceiling.”

He wanted to throttle Peter. He was tired from being in the shop for the past countless hours, and Steve would be home soon. Tony was going to take a stab in the dark and assume that this was not exactly what Steve would want to find when he walked in after dealing with SHIELD all day. Peter really, really needed to get down from  the ceiling. This was not a problem he had ever thought he would encounter when he and Steve decided to be parents, but his life seemed to tend towards insane and improbable, so he shouldn’t have been surprised.

The problem was, Peter had a stubborn streak a mile long. If he didn’t want to get down, Tony would have to literally drag him down. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any antigravity equipment hanging around - but after this incident, it was at the top of a list of things he’d be looking into.

So Peter was still glaring down at him, his face pinched up sullenly, and because Tony was a responsible adult at the end of his rope, when he looked around the room and saw the broom leaning against the wall, he grabbed it.

"Peter," he demanded as calmly as possible, returning to stand directly below Peter again, broom raised. "Last warning. Get down."

"No."

So, Tony poked him on the ridge of his shoulder blade with the end of the broom, earning himself an indignant squawk.

"You can’t poke me with a broom!" Peter exclaimed, his eyes wide. Normally he’d find Peter’s half cranky, half surprised expression hilarious, but he’d crossed from ‘severely irritated’ territory into ‘frankly pissed off’ about twenty minutes ago. Also, his head ached. He was cranky, Peter was cranky, and all of this would very easily be solved if everyone just went to bed.

"I can, and I will," Tony shot back, jabbing him again. "I’ll keep poking you all night if that’s what it takes."

"Daddy!"

Peter was openly glaring at him now, his eyes narrowed and his lips curled in displeasure.

"I’m not getting down," Peter grumbled, stubborn.

"Fine," Tony shrugged, "then I’ll just keep doing this."

Then, he poked him again, and his sweet little ray of sunshine retaliated by uncrossing his arms, and reached his hands out towards Tony, face twisted into a truculent smirk. Tony knew what was going to happen, but the damn kid was too quick. Before Tony could do anything to stop it, he ended up with a faceful of webbing.

He made a rather undignified sound, and scrabbled at his face to peel the sticky substance off of his forehead and away from his eyes - it always was a bitch to get out of his eyebrows, so that would be fun.

"Peter you are in heaps of trouble. You are grounded until you’re twenty five, and even then you’re only getting out on probation."

Peter didn’t answer, just sent down another gush of webbing all over Tony. He felt it caking in his hair and plastering against his skin; probably the most unpleasant sensation in the world.

"Peter," he said, his tone low and bordering on losing it, the tiniest lick away from anger. The amusement had faded somewhere around the five minute mark.

He and Peter both froze when a familiar voice called out from the hallway.

"Tony? Where’s Peter, he needs to get in-"

Steve’s mouth seemed to stop working as he walked into the room, his jaw hanging slack and his hand resting limply on the doorknob as he assessed the situation in the room. Tony could only imagine how it looked; their son hanging from his ass on the ceiling, and his husband standing in the middle of the room brandishing a broom, while from the shoulders up he was covered in a layer of white webbing that probably was slicking his hair down flat against his head, and was caked into the fibers of his shirt. Probably not what he’d been expecting to come home to.

"-Bed," he finished, and for a few moments they were all silent, Steve staring at them with a completely unreadable expression, Tony and Peter looking back at him guiltily.

"Steve…" Tony began, but he snapped his mouth shut when Steve did something he was not expecting.

He chortled at first, an involuntary laugh tearing from his throat and exploding into the room. Steve looked almost surprised at himself for the strangled sound he made, but then he just gave in, doubling over and clutching at his stomach as he shook with laughter.

"Um," Tony said, but it was drowned out by the sound of Steve chortling.

"I can’t believe this," he wheezed out between gasps of laughter, "I can’t believe this is what I’m coming home to."

"He wouldn’t come down," Tony told him, and yeah, it might have been a little bit sheepishly.

"So you decided to poke him with a broom?"

"Well… when you put it that way..."

Steve was shaking his head, shoulders still trembling with the aftermath of hysterical laughter, and he placed  a hand over his eyes.

"What am I going to do with you two?" he asked, and his voice was a little bit breathy, but Tony could’ve sworn there was an underlying tone of fondness there. Just maybe.

Taking advantage of that, he asked in a hopeful tone, “Love us forever even though we’re idiots?”

"Daddy said a swear word," Peter piped up from the ceiling, and Steve’s head shot up.

"I really don’t think you’re in any position to be trying to get your Dad in trouble right now Peter," he told him sternly. Steve really could switch gears incredibly fast; there was only the faintest glimmer of amusement in his tone.

"I don’t want to get down," Peter said feebly, but Steve was staring at him with those disappointed eyes, and Tony knew that he wasn’t going to hold out for very long. One of the Stark’s fatal flaws; they were both completely vulnerable when it came to Steve Disappointment.

"Peter," Steve said quietly, but his tone held power. It was that voice he used in the field that made his team willing to move mountains under his command. If a team of superheroes fell victim to the voice, a six year old had no chance.

Peter shrugged, obviously faking nonchalance, and dropped to the floor, landing in a crouched position. When he straightened up, it was to look into the face of one very displeased looking super soldier.

"I’m sorry," Peter apologized, shuffling his feet and avoiding eye contact. Steve just let out a long sigh and leaned down to put a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

"We’ll talk about it later. Go brush your teeth, okay?"

Peter nodded sharply, and scampered away, his little feet padding across the floor.

Steve shook his head again, and then turned to Tony, who was struggling desperately to get the webbing out of his hair.

"Need some help?" Steve grinned, stepping forward and cupping his hands around Tony’s cheeks, plucking at the stickiness he could still feel clinging to his skin. Tony grunted unhappily.

"I’m going to have spider web crap in my goatee for a week."

"Mmm," Steve hummed in agreement, starting on Tony’s hair, which he was sure was a mess. "Probably, yes."

Their hands kept getting jumbled together. Tony didn’t have a mirror so he had no idea what he was doing, so he just huffed and let his hands drop, letting Steve fuss over him.

They stood there quietly for a few moments, Steve attentively trying to get as much of it out of his hair as possible, when Tony poked him lightly in his ribs.

"Yes, Tony?"

"Regretting this yet?" Tony asked, posing it as a joke with the smile that felt a little bit brittle on his lips. Sometimes he wondered. He couldn’t understand how Steve still wanted to come home to this insanity. Tony loved him but a tiny part of him would probably always marvel at the fact that Steve was here of his own volition. When they’d first gotten married, he’d felt like he’d been quite literally swept off of his feet, and worried that the novelty of being the ultimate superhero couple life would wear off, and Steve would leave.

Those thoughts were gone now, though; Tony would have to be blind to miss the way that Steve looked at him, the way he looked at their son, how happy he was. Tony knew Steve loved him and their life together. Tony was beyond grateful for it.

He knew, and he was used to it, but it would never lose that almost tangible sense of wonder Tony still felt when he woke up to a supersoldier snoring in his ear.

Tony was so happy it felt criminal, and he was grateful every day that it seemed Steve felt the same.

Then, Steve glanced over to make eye contact with him for a moment, and gave him a small smile that told him he knew exactly what Tony was thinking. And that he thought he was a complete idiot.

"Never," he told him, and Tony could hear the honesty and earnestness in his voice. That was all it took for him to relax, and let himself relax into Steve’s touch. He hated getting his head webbed, but have Steve stroke his fingers gently through his hair afterwards wasn’t exactly a hardship.

Then, still smiling, Steve leaned in to capture Tony’s lips with his own, and Tony could taste a faint hint of that contented smile still on his lips. He loved this man so much it hurt, this man who had allowed him to have a life that he’d never thought he’d have, with a son who hung from the walls no less.

Even when he thought his head was going to explode from the craziness of his life, he never regretted it for a moment either.

"Good," he breathed against Steve’s lips, and he felt a tiny laugh gust out across his mouth, as Steve clutched his hands tenderly around the back of his neck as he kissed him, lips soft and gentle on his.

"Yuck," a small voice complained in disgust, and they broke apart to see a very unhappy Peter glaring up at them. "Quit kissin’"

"Bed, little man," Tony told him, and Peter gave him a few more moments of glaring, before he caught Steve’s expression and scrambled to cross the room and hop into bed.

Tony sighed heavily and rested his forehead against Steve’s, placing his hands lightly on the crest of his hip bones. “How do you do that?”

"He knows you’re a softie," Steve told him, and grinned at the way Tony’s face screwed up defensively.

"You are," Steve insisted softly, and Tony knew he was right, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit it.

"Mmm," he hummed grouchily instead of answering, and Steve smirked.

"Mmm is right." Steve leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips again, and then onto the tip of his nose. "Now come on, we have to go read to our son."

 


End file.
